The popularity of food processors or blending machines, particularly in the beverage industry, has soared in recent times. People are beginning to appreciate the taste and quality of a well-processed beverage. Blended fruit smoothies and similar fruit drinks, popular with all types of people ranging from fitness fanatics to the less active, require a food processor or blending machine. Cold beverages, in particular, which utilize fruit (frozen or fresh) and ice to prepare present unique challenges in beverage preparation. An appropriate blending machine will break down the ice, fruit, and other ingredients in attempting to achieve an ideal uniform drink consistency. In addition, food processors or blending machines are ideal for mixing nutritional supplements into beverages while similarly attempting to achieve an ideal uniform drink consistency.
In addition to the smoothie craze which has swept the nation, food processors and blending machines are being used to produce many new and different beverages. For example, different types of coffees, shakes, dairy drinks, and the like are now commonly served at many different types of retail business locations. Consumers are demanding more diversity and variety in the beverages available at these smoothie shops and other retail stores. The keys to producing a high quality beverage, irrespective of the specific type of beverage, are quality ingredients and a high quality blending machine that will quickly and efficiently blend the ingredients to produce a drink with uniform consistency.
One problem associated with businesses that depend on blending machines is the speed with which the beverage or drink is prepared. In the food preparation industry, time equals money. Traditional beverages are made by retrieving a clean blending container, adding nutritional supplements, adding liquid ingredients (e.g., juices and water), adding fruit, adding ice cream, sorbet, sherbet, yogurt, or another similar ingredient, and adding ice. Thereafter, the blending container is covered and placed upon a motor which rotates a blade rotatably and integrally mounted within the blending container to process the foodstuffs and ingredients in an attempt to achieve the desired uniform drink consistency. Thereafter, the blending container is removed from the motor, the lid is removed from the top of the blending container, and the worker pours a blended beverage from the blending container into a beverage receptacle. Where an enclosure is used for noise reduction purposes, the blending container and installed lid must first be removed from the enclosure before removing the lid and serving the beverage. As noted, traditional blending methods require many separate steps and are highly cumbersome. Traditional blending requires physically moving the blending container to different locations for adding the various ingredients to the blending container, and then to the processing area. Collectively, significant periods of time are wasted between stations and by the requirement of human interaction. If the retail store is busy, the worker may leave the blending container at a particular location for an extended period of time. All of these non-automated steps performed by the beverage preparer, consume collectively large amounts of time. Each second wasted translates over time into money lost.
Another problem associated with traditional food processors and blenders relates to cleaning the blending container after a beverage for public consumption has been prepared. Traditionally, the blending containers are moved into a cleaning area for ultimate cleaning by hand and later transferred to an area where the blending container, after hand cleaning, can be used to mix another drink. It is generally understood that leaving unclean food service equipment in ambient air for even short periods of time may result in the formation of bacteria. Where washing by hand is employed (as opposed to automatic machine washing at relatively higher water temperatures), delay in cleaning may create problems. In addition, as mentioned above, steps such as washing by hand take time. The location where the blending containers are cleaned is usually remote from the location where the beverages are poured into receptacles for providing to customers. Thus, time is required to manually move the blending container from the service area to the remote cleaning area, which again becomes significant over a period of time.
Still another problem associated with traditional mixing devices relates to the need for multiple workers to be positioned at the various locations required in traditional mixing. It is common to have multiple workers at multiple stations where multiple blending containers are shuttled between stations while drinks are being prepared. For obvious reasons, the manpower requirements associated with traditional commercial drink mixing is expensive.
Yet another problem associated with making traditional frozen desserts, soft-serve ice cream, milkshakes, and the like, is that the products sit for extended periods of time in convenience stores and other fast-serve retail locations and are not blended or mixed at the time the products are served. Accordingly, these products cannot maintain consistency with respect to the composition of the beverage or with respect to the flavor of the beverage. Prior machines for producing frozen desserts such as soft-serve ice cream, milkshakes, icees, and the like, typically work on the principle of providing a drum within the machine that is chilled. A diluted beverage mixture freezes to the drum and is scraped off in the mixing process. As the mixed beverage materials sit for extended periods of time, they tend to separate, further crystalize, and degenerate with respect to taste and composition consistency.
A further problem associated with traditional machines that serve chilled or partially frozen beverages, including without limitation soft-serve ice cream, shakes, icees, etc., is that the beverage mix typically comes in the form of a diluted beverage mixture. All of the water, concentrate, and other ingredients must be shipped together. This requires shipping, storing, and installing for service to customers through a machine additional quantities (in terms of volume and weight) of the diluted beverage mixture.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need to provide a blending station apparatus and method of blending that will allow beverages to be made quickly and efficiently minimizing the overall time required between ordering a beverage and serving the beverage to the customer. There is also a need to provide a blending station apparatus and blending method that will minimize human involvement during the preparation and blending process. There is a further need to provide a blending station apparatus where ice and the other beverage ingredients can be mixed immediately prior to serving a beverage for consumption to maintain the highest possible quality of flavor and drink consistency.